Q: What can I do with an Autocollimator?

An autocollimator is one of the most flexible tools in an optical engineer's tool-kit. This informal
document describes a few representative applications.
Theory of operation
If you need to brush up on the theory of operation these two articles are a good place to start.
You can find them in the technical library section at www.wellsresearch.com
What is a collimator
1
?
What is an autocollimator
2
?
A representative autocollimator
Before getting to the applications, lets take a closer look at a typical autocollimator.
The photo shows a Wells Research model AC1, mounted on a simple vertical post.
The round item on the baseplate is a mirror, which will be used in several of the application examples
which follow.
1 http://www.wellsresearch.com/library/pdfs/collimator.pdf
2 http://www.wellsresearch.com/library/pdfs/autocollimator.pdf
LED light source
LED light source
LED light source
Tip stage
(1 of 2)
CCD camera
Lens
Beamsplitter
Target reticle
Target reticle
Slots for LED
and reticle
Figure 1
Figure 2
Example #1: Checking parallelism
The small assembly below is a real-world example. A good 2 inch diameter flat mirror is bonded to an
aluminum plate. Although you can't tell from the photos, the mirror is bonded to the aluminum plate
by 3 small pads of RTV adhesive. When I assembled this part, it was my intention to make the face of
the mirror perfectly parallel to the back surface of the aluminum plate. We can use the autocollimator
to measure how close I came to achieving this goal.
The screen-shots are taken from PixelScope-Pro, the software package that is included with the AC1.
The target reticle is a simple cross, whose arms are 4 mm long, and only 10 um wide.
At first light, the image is not very well centered. This means that the optical axis of the autocollimator
is not perfectly perpendicular to the mirror. By adjusting the tip/tilt stages we can bring the image of
the reticle to the center of the screen. Now the autocollimator is exactly perpendicular to the mirror.
To turn on the small blue cross in the center of the image, select the Caliper Tool and press center
Figure 3
Figure 4
Incidentally, if you want to get make the alignment as accurate as possible, just right-click the mouse
to zoom in. In the photo below you can clearly see the individual pixels in the image.
To recap, here's what we've done:
Placed a mirror in front of the autocollimator
Adjusted the tip/tilt stages to center the image
Now, rotate the mirror 180 degrees. (In other words, go from figure 3 to figure 4)
Wow! That's a lot of motion. Looks like I didn't do a very good job of making the mirror parallel to
the mounting plate!
In Example #2 we'll measure this angle in milli-radians.
Example #2: Make a quick measurement of angle
OK, so the mirror surface and mounting plate are not parallel. But how much is the error angle?
We can use PixelScope-Pro to measure the angular change between Our goal is to measure the angular
tip between figure 9 and figure 10.
Before actually measuring the angle, it's worth reviewing the difference between angular tip
(what the autocollimator measures) and mechanical tip (the problem with the mirror
assembly )
As suggested in Figure 12, the angular tip is twice the mechanical tip.

The Caliper Tool is designed for quick measurements. To use it, simply:
Select the caliper tool from the toolbar
Drag the two ends of the caliper to line up with the points you want to measure.
The measured angle
3
shows up on the Caliper tool window.
3 Don't be confused by the Angle item on the caliper tool. This refers to the slope of the line on the screen.
Figure 11
2A
Mirror tips by angle A
Return beam is tipped by 2A
A ray from the autocollimator (cyan)
and the reflected ray (blue) are both
exactly perpendicular to mirror
A
Figure 12
TIP:
Caliper tool
Drag with mouse
Figure 13
Figure 14
Example #3: Make a more accurate measurement of angle
The caliper tool is conceptually simple, but it can be time consuming when you need a really accurate
measurement
4
. Instead, you can use the 2D Feature Finder Tool which will snap onto the feature
automatically. The process is:
Select the 2D Feature Finder Tool.
Drag a selection rectangle around the cross.
The 2D Feature Finder will lock onto any features within the selection region,
Press Set to define this location as zero
Reverse the part (from figure 3 to figure 4)
Move the selection rectangle to the new location
Read the X and Y location of the directly from the 2D Feature Finder window:
4 To get good accuracy you must zoom in to the pixel level, as shown in Figure 7, and then very carefully place the caliper
measuring cross.
2D Feature
Finder Tool
Drag selection region
with mouse
Figure 15 Figure 16
Figure 17
Figure 18
If you want to see the results in different units, use the Optical Configuration Dialog:
Example #4: Align two machine elements
The photo below simulates a common task. Some machine element (in this case the tip stage) has to be
made parallel to another machine element (in this case the baseplate). Often the machine elements are
not reflective, so it is common to add an optical flat, or a simple piece of glass, as shown below:
Figure 19
Figure 20
Figure21
TIP:
Here's the view
5
in PixelScope:
I deliberately left a little error in the horizontal direction so you could see that there are really two
features in figure 23.
When you get close, the Cross Section Tool can be helpful to achieve perfect overlap.
In Figure 24 the alignment looks pretty good. However, when we view the cross section, you can see
that the traces don't overlap perfectly. If the overlap were perfect the trace would be symmetrical, and
Figure 25 shows a clear asymmetry.
5 The optical flat has a partially reflective coating so that the image reflected from it is brighter than the reflection from
the glass.
Figure24 Figure25
Example #5: Use the Autocollimator as Microscope
In the photo below, an 100 mm closeup lens has been added to the autocollimator, converting it to a
long-working-distance microscope.
The image in figure 27 was taken with ambient office lighting. The image shows some very small
letters on the business card, printed in gray ink. You can see that the printer achieved the gray color by
using a halftone pattern.
We can use the Caliper Tool to measure the size of the grid, but before doing that, we have to tell
PixelScope that we have changed the configuration of our setup. After all, we would like the
measurements to come out in microns or mm, not degrees or milli-radians!
To do this, we use the Optical Configuration Dialog. Once we change the setup, the measurement
tools will read out in units of microns.

PixelScope-Pro comes pre-loaded with a few common setups, and you can create your own with the
new and edit buttons.
Figure 26 Figure 27
Figure 28 Figure 29
To avoid confusion, the pre-loaded setups are all defined in terms of angular tip, not
mechanical tip. If you would prefer to see the results presented as mechanical tip, you can use
the User Defined Units setting on the Units tab. (See fig. 19)
It is also possible to remove the reticle from the autocollimator, and use the LED as a vertical
illuminator.
Example #6: Check the quality of an optical element
Situation with perfectly flat mirror
Consider an autocollimator with a simple pinhole reticle. Figure 31 shows rays from the autocollimator
striking a mirror.
In figure 31 the mirror is exactly perpendicular to the incoming rays, but this will not always be the
case, as suggested in figure 32.
If the mirror is tipped by an angle A, then the returning rays will be tipped by 2A. These rays are still
parallel to each other, so the objective lens will focus them to a single point at the CCD.
TIP:
Figure 30
TIP:
Rays returning
to autocollimator
Rays from
autocollimator
Figure 31 Figure 32
Because the rays enter the autocollimator objective lens at an angle, the point where the rays converge
will be slightly displaced from the center of the CCD.
Numerical example:
The displacement will be 2*A *400, where 400 is the focal length of the objective lens in mm. If A is 1 mr, then the displacement
will be 0.8 mm. Considering that the total width of the CCD is only about 5 mm this is quite a lot!
Situation where mirror is not perfectly flat
Figure 33 shows the situation when the mirror is not perfectly flat.
Of course the amount of non-flatness is greatly exaggerated. For example, an inexpensive mirror
might have a spec of only 4-6 waves per inch.
Numerical example:
Consider a mirror like the one shown below, where y = 5 waves, and X = 1 inch. This is not necessarily a profile you would
experience in practice, but it does clearly meet the flatness spec of 4-6 wave per inch you often see on inexpensive mirrors.
y is approximately 3 microns. (When flatness is specified without a specific wavelength, 632 nm is usually implied,)
Each flat area is roughly 12 mm wide, so the mirror slope is .003/12. The angle of the returning rays is double the mirror
angle, or .003/6 = milli-radian. . The angle between the two groups of relatively parallel rays is twice this, or 1 milli-radian.
On the CCD you would see an image would consist of two relatively sharp spots, each of which has moved from the center line
by 0.2 mm, or a total separation of 0.4 mm. What should be a point image is now smeared out over about 80 pixels, even
though the mirror flatness error is only a few wavelengths of light.
Takeaway:
If you want to see a perfectly sharp return image, you will need a mirror which is really very
flat. As the numerical example shows, 4-6 waves per inch is definitely not flat enough, and
even 1/4 wave will produce noticeable image smear
6
. If you require a really sharp return image
an absolute flatness is 1/10 wave or better will be required.
If the return image is not sharp, it's a safe bet that the mirror is not very flat.
6 I can already hear you saying But my mirror is only spec'd for wave, and it produces a razor sharp image. Fair
enough, but maybe your mirror is actually a lot better than wave. Remember, the spec only says that the flatness will
be no worse than wave.
Y
x
Figure 33
Figure 34
Figure 35
Example #7: Deduce the nature of the flaws in an optical element
Example 6 introduced the concept that an imperfect mirror will tend to smear out an image that would
otherwise be sharp. The numerical example showed how to relate the local mirror profile to how the
rays are smeared out.
However, what about the reverse? If we are given a setup that produces a smeared image, can we
deduce the nature of the flaws in the optical element? The answer is yes, and this section explains
how.
As figure 33 suggested, an non-flat mirror will cause rays to return at different angles. The objective
lens will focus each small ray bundle to a different area at the CCD depending on the angle of the ray
bundle.
Figures 36 and 37 suggest a clever trick that can be used to measure the local tip of the mirror:

An aperture is used to mask all but a small area of the full beam. This reduces the total amount of light,
of course, so you will need to increase the camera exposure
7
. However, by moving the aperture
around, you can map out the local slope variations in the mirror. This is an exquisitely sensitive
technique.
Numerical example:
It is reasonable to expect the feature finder routines to be usable to 1/10 pixel if the feature is reasonably sharp. (about 0.5 micron)
This corresponds to an angle of .000 5 / 400 mm, or very roughly 1 part per million.
Now consider a mirror whose slope error is 1/10 wave per 10 mm. The actual slope is .000 05 / 10, or 5 parts per million and the
slope of the reflected beam will be twice that amount, or 1 part per 10^5.
The example suggests we should be able to detect slope errors as small as 1/100 wave per 10 mm. In
practice this level of precision is hard to achieve, and requires great careAir path noise alone can
easily introduce errors far larger than 1 ppm.
A few tips:
When you move the aperture around, be careful not to touch the rest of the setup.
Likewise, when you move the aperture, be careful not to put your hand under the beam.
7 If the image is very sharp, then the small aperture will cause it to become less sharp, because of diffraction. If the image
was fuzzy to begin with, then the small aperture will probably make it appear sharper.
Small aperture
or slit
Figure 36 Figure 37
Believe it or not, the heat of your hand can cause the apparent image to move around quite a bit.
We call this Air path noise.
You can use the plot vs time capability built into PixelScope to make a plot of image location
as you move the aperture around.
If you want a more precise plot, please contact Wells Research for information about our digital
dial indicator option. This will allow you to plot image location against the actual location of
the aperture.
Example #8: How to check the focus of the autocollimator
Before each autocollimator leaves the factory, we set both the outbound and return paths to have a
focus error of no more than 150 microns. An error of 150 microns may seem like a lot (and we
generally do better) but it it corresponds to a focus error of only .001 diopter. (in other words an image
distance of 1 km or greater
8
.)
The sketch below illustrates this technique. For simplicity I show only the return path, and assume
that the source is either an image at infinity, or that you are using a perfectly flat mirror to generate a
return beam. An off-axis aperture restricts the size of the ray bundle which reaches the CCD.
Two image planes are shown. The black plane represents the actual focal plane, where the rays focus
to a perfect point
9
. The red plane is slightly out of focus. As we move away from focus, the diameter
of the spot increases, and the position also shifts slightly.
Numerical example:
EFL = 400 mm
Aperture location = 20 mm away from optical axis
Average angle of ray bundle = 20 / 400 = .05
Distance between and red and black planes = 150 microns
Vertical shift of image between red and black planes = 150 * .05 = 7.5 microns
8 This calculation uses the lensmaker's formula 1/EFL = 1/L1 +1/L2
It is usually more convenient to rearrange the formula as L2 = 1/( 1/EFL -1/L1)
In the example given, EFL = 400 mm, and L1 = 400.15 mm The formula gives L2= 1,067,067 mm
9 If you are an optical engineer you will realize that even though the geometric focus is a true point, the physical image is a little larger.
If there is no wavefront aberration the physical image is an Airy disk whose size is roughly F Lambda, where lambda is the
wavelength of illumination. In the case of most Wells Research autocollimator this is 535 nm.
Figure 38
Now imagine that we move the aperture across the objective lens over a total range of +/- 20 mm. If we plot image location vs
aperture location we'd expect to see a plot like this:
The total amount of image shift would be +/- 7.5 microns. While this is a small distance, it is easily resolvable by PixelScope's
feature finder tool.
Another example:
Consider the hypothetical mirror proposed in figures 44 and 45. We would expect to see a plot of
image location vs aperture location like the one below:
A final example:
The final example is beyond the scope of Check whether the autocollimator is perfectly focused.
However, if you are an optical engineer you may find it interesting.
Please again consider the setup shown in figure 38. What if the objective lens in the autocollimator
had spherical aberration? We would expect a plot similar to the one shown in figure 43
Figure 39:
Image location vs aperture
location at black plane
Figure 40:
Image location vs aperture
location at red plane
Figure 41
Hypothetical mirror with
abrupt slope change
Figure 41:
Image location vs aperture
location for mirror of fig 41.
Figure 42
Image location vs aperture
location for system with
spherical aberration
Hopefully you won't find much SA in your autocollimator
10
, but you can see how this technique can be
used to measure wavefront aberation in an external element.
10 The objective lenses in our autocollimators are manufactured to a spec of < 1/10 wave aberration.